Life brings us many stretches of time that are entirely ordinary. Not much happens in these times and they quickly fade from our memories. But then there is the occasional stretch where all sorts of consequential events take place in rapid succession. And as it happens, my family is heading into one of these right now.

Tomorrow Aileen and I will celebrate our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. August 8, 1998, dawned hot and humid and only got more so as the day went on. We had chosen to be married at St. John’s Anglican Church in Ancaster—the beautiful and historic church at the center of our hometown and the church where Aileen’s parents had been married many years before. It was a great building in every way but one—it had no air conditioning. We had chosen to have our reception next door in Ancaster’s historic Old Town Hall—another beautiful building but another one that lacked A/C. It is amusing to look back on our wedding photos now and to see our foreheads progressively glowing over the course of the day, our faces flushing, our hair flopping as time went on and the heat refused to relent. But we had a wonderful day nonetheless and enjoyed celebrating with friends and family. It marked the beginning of something wonderful.
We were just 21 and 22 at the time—so young and so naive. We were barely independent, both of us having lived in our parents’ home until that very day. We were poor as church mice and had no obvious prospects for successful careers. But we loved one another and were committed to joining our lives together. The Lord blessed us on that day and he has blessed us richly ever since. We have endured our share of sorrows, of course, and have passed through a good number of difficulties. But our love for one another has only grown. As we look back we can only be thankful—thankful to God for his grace and thankful to God for providing just the right person for each of us. It has been a blessing to do life together. I think we can each say that there’s no one else with whom we would have wanted to endure the peaks, the valleys, and everything in between.
This anniversary comes at the cusp of a significant life change. On Wednesday we will load up our car and head south to Boyce College where, on Thursday, we will get Michaela set up for her freshman year. By the time we return home, we will be empty-nesters, at least through the school year. And while we are finding some sadness in this transition and the thought of a quieter, emptier house, we are not afraid of it. In fact, we are looking forward to figuring out together how to do this stage well. Since we can’t change it, we plan to embrace it!
Michaela is ready to go! She and Aileen have been busily planning and buying and packing, and it looks like they’ve got everything she needs. She will be living in the residences and sharing a room with a couple of roommates. The three have been chatting online and are already coming to enjoy one another. We are excited for her and are as convinced as we can be that she will be able to thrive there.
After we have gotten Michaela set and made the drive home, Aileen and I are getting away together to celebrate twenty-five years and so many other blessings. We exchanged a bunch of Air Canada points for some flights to New Zealand and are excited to spend a bit of time on the wintery South Island. It will be something of a working vacation, but should be a nice one nonetheless. (In this case, working means writing, not public speaking.)
Abby and Nate continue to live in Louisville while Abby completes her degree at Boyce College. Since one of them is Canadian and the other American, they had to make a decision about which country they would live in. He, after all, has no intrinsic right to live in Canada and she has no intrinsic right to remain in the United States after completing her degree. Something had to give! They decided that Nate would immigrate to Canada and just a few days ago he received his letter of acceptance for permanent residency here. This frees him to move to Canada anytime, to secure a job, and to begin the path to citizenship. They are planning to make the move in May when Abby has wrapped up her studies in biblical counseling. We will be so excited and so thankful to have them back on this side of the border and hopefully living nearby.
Ryn continues to be part of the family too, of course! She is living in Louisville and focusing on work. She recently had the opportunity to do a mission trip to the Middle East, then to share with her church her “Story of Grace” through the loss of her fiancé. From what I have been told, it went well and was a blessing to the congregation.
In other news, I have now completed filming 7 of the 12 episodes of Worship Round the World. The schedule, which has involved crisscrossing the globe and moving through so many time zones, has been nothing less than punishing. Yet things have gone well and the project is slowly, steadily coming together. If all goes according to plan, we will film another three episodes this fall before finishing up in early January. And then, of course, we will need to actually create scripts and produce films and write a book and turn it all into something you may wish to watch and read.
Here’s the tally of countries I’ve visited this year:
🇨🇦 🇺🇸 🇵🇱 🇸🇰 🇨🇿 🇦🇺 🇫🇯 🇹🇴 🇰🇭 🇸🇬 🇩🇰 🇸🇪 🇳🇴 🇨🇱 🇦🇷 🇺🇾 🇧🇷 🇹🇭 🇰🇷
And here are the ones still to come:
🇳🇿 🇿🇦 🇿🇲 🇪🇬 🇵🇹 🇮🇳
As I write all of this—as I look to the past and project into the future—I can’t help but think of James’ words in the fourth chapter of his letter. He means to remind us that all of our times are in the hands of the Lord, for “you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.’”
We can bear twenty-five years of testimony to God’s care, kindness, and providence—to all that his good will has decreed. As we look to the next few weeks and the next few decades, we have no idea what tomorrow will bring, but we do know who will bring it. And we know that he is good, that he is kind, and that he loves us. We are eager to honor, serve, and praise his name.

Today’s Kindle deals include a few interesting books.

(Yesterday on the blog: 40 More Random Pieces of Advice for the Christian Life)
Fathers, Lead the Way
Here’s a reflection for fathers in the lead-up to Father’s Day.
Let Your Sins Be Strong
“We all tend to minimize our sinfulness. We look at the wrongs we have done and do everything we can to try and justify our actions. Doing this, however, fails to take full ownership of our sins.”
A Christian Perspective on the Meaning of Life
It’s a question we all need to ask at some point, an issue we all need to consider: What are we here for?
What tree does the fruit grow on?
“Western Europe (and North America) is moving further and further from its moorings in a Christian view of life. Some are glad to see the back of what they might term ‘superstitious nonsense’. Others are deeply troubled that the religious foundations with which they grew up are being shaken.”
How Do I Forgive?
Sometimes forgiveness isn’t quite as easy as we think it will be…
9Marks Journal
For those interested in some slightly more academic reading, there is a new issue of the 9Marks Journal available to read for free.
Flashback: Consecutive Exposition Is Not the Only Way
His approach was not to simply pluck a text from the Bible, but to take a text from God through the Bible. He would not labor to exposit his text until he had labored to discover his text.

No one thing either deforms or weakens the Church more than division. —John Brinsley

Though we are 2,000 years past the founding of the New Testament church, we are seemingly still confused about how we ought to worship God. There are many competing philosophies of worship, many disagreements about everything from its purpose to its God-ordained elements and methods. We know we must worship, but we so often don’t know how.

It is for this reason that we continue to see so many new books on the subject and for this reason that we need to. This includes, most recently, H.B. Charles Jr.’s On Worship: A Short Guide to Understanding, Participating in, and Leading Corporate Worship. He confesses that, though he has previously written on preaching and pastoring, he found it surprisingly difficult to write on worship. “I believe I have a biblical philosophy of these [other] ministry subjects. After more than thirty years of experience in pastoring a church and preaching each week, I feel comfortable writing about those subjects. Who, truly, is competent to write about worship? And if writers feel confident that worship is a subject they have thoroughly mastered, should we be reading what they think?”
Though he does not claim to have thoroughly mastered the subject of worship, he has made a long and careful study of the matter and over many years of leading a church has attempted to refine his convictions along Reformed, Protestant lines. The result is On Worship which “is not a theological treatise, biblical study, or comprehensive handbook on worship.” Neither is it meant to be. It is instead “more like a compass than a road map” that “seeks to point you in the right direction.”
The book is comprised of thirty chapters that fall into three parts. The chapters are deliberately short and are not always entirely thematically sequential—perhaps a bit more like essays or blog posts that could be read in any order rather than having to be read one after the other.
The first section is dedicated to understanding worship not just as a brief time on Sunday mornings but as a whole-life pursuit that is meant to be the priority of every Christian. Worship that honors God depends upon worshipping in the ways he instructs us to, acknowledging his supremacy, depending upon his Word, and being filled with his Spirit. It requires us to be bound to the local church, to faithfully steward our entire lives, and to live with joy and generosity.
The second section is for those who participate in worship (which is to say, for every Christian). All Christians are to be committed to participating in public, corporate worship and all Christians are to carefully prepare themselves for such worship. The gathered church is to read the Word and pray together, to sing and to “amen,” to exercise their gifts and so build up and encourage one another and in that way to carry out the work of the ministry.
The third section is for those who are involved in leading worship. Here Charles writes about specific elements of a service like a call to worship and leading singing. He discusses the importance of racial diversity in the church and the ways churches can honor and integrate young people. He points out that in a society in which biblical knowledge is waning, we must explain everything and take for granted nothing.
In the end, the three sections and thirty chapters lead to a well-rounded and biblically-faithful understanding of why and how God calls us to worship him. It leaves room for different Christians to worship in ways consistent with their traditions and culture, yet also calls us to ensure that, no matter what, our worship is “shaped and governed by the Word of God. Sacred Scripture should be foundational to all that happens in our public and corporate worship assemblies. Beyond the foundation, however, God’s Word should explicitly structure our worship lives—privately and publicly.”
As is the case with all of Charles’ books, On Worship is filled with instructive quotes and punchy one-liners. It leans upon other useful worship resources and amplifies the voices of other helpful authors. His hope, he says, is to lift the reader’s gaze “beyond mundane, secondary, and worldly thoughts to the ultimate goals of true worship.” And that is a hope he realizes well. This is a book that will benefit every Christian, for whether or not we have been called to take a leadership role in worship, it most certainly falls to each one of us to understand it and participate in it.

Buy from Amazon